


What They Grow Beyond

by babble_bee



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Graphic Violence, Luke looked at his sleeping nephew with both his stupid hands still attached, Mentions of Limb Loss, Next Generation, Post TROS, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Reylo Kids, and whispered "unacceptable", depictions of bodily injury, everyone has kids, in Skywalker tradition, now they are older and more wizened, or at least trying to be, reylo family, she got him back they got married they had babies, sibling dynamics, that's what happened to Ben you see, there's so many kids, they disown you if you still have all appendages
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22854064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babble_bee/pseuds/babble_bee
Summary: It is thirty years since the Battle of Exegol, nearly twenty since Rey Skywalker retrieved Ben Solo from the World Between Worlds. The First Order is in remnants. Finn and Poe Dameron lead the new federation at the side of many worlds left war-torn and weary. A new academy of force-users is fostered on Naboo.The galaxy rejoices at the chance to start anew, and one principle permeates the wills of those that remain: to do better by their children.
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	1. Forests and Fights

**Author's Note:**

> “Heeded my words not, did you? Pass on what you have learned. Strength. Mastery. But weakness, folly, failure also. Yes, failure most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is. Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.”

***

Ben Solo had an epiphany.

On this day in 64 ABY, with his hair streaked with grey and lines of age settling onto his face, Ben realized something utterly crucial about himself.

His strength in the force was not given to him so he could become a powerful Jedi or Sith. It wasn't to chase the lost aspiration of dead relatives, or fulfill some forgotten birthright. He wasn't strong in the living Force to assume a throne, or scrape at the whims of a wrinkled mastermind whispering foreign thoughts into his head. His borne ability was _purely_ so he could prevent his eldest children from constantly killing each other.

Freezing blaster bolts? Subjugating minds? No. His power was for saving his kids from constant, imminent death. It was for gently pushing them back from traipsing off whatever cliff they would _inevitably_ find. It was for levitating breakables millimeters before they shattered onto the ground—or onto one of their guilty faces—when they would fling them around, either accidentally or purposefully (often at one another). It was for force-projecting his voice into their brains _no, do_ _ **not**_ _try to ride the angry shaak_ when he knew they weren't listening. It was for healing the cuts and scrapes when they did it anyway.

Bringing order to the galaxy? Absolute peanuts compared to the insurmountable effort of trying to bring order to these two ornery souls. This had been his never-ending task for the past 18 years, and it was exhausting. Today, the task was becoming distinctly harder since the fools in question moved their newest battle outside into the forests of Naboo.

Their sabers weren't even ignited, still clipped to their belts, hanging idle in favor of simply force-hurling half-decayed felled tree trunks and boulders at each other. Kyp, his arm straining, lifted a particularly hefty boulder and whipped it toward his sister, her hand flinging out automatically.

Before Ben could reach out to stop the projectile from murdering his first born, a bolt of lightning erupted from her outstretched fingers, shattering the boulder into pieces that scattered around her. He froze, the feeling of sand and the heat of a desert of the past niggling like phantoms at his memory. This reverie went entirely unnoticed by them.

“Cheater!” Kyp yelled.

“Suck it, fly brain!” Jaia whooped, punching her fist at the air.

The whoosh of a lightsaber igniting sounded, as Kyp unholstered it from his side.

The other twenty-odd students, who at first had paid little mind to this regular occurrence, began to gather at a distance and watch with interest. A conspiratorial murmur swept through the juvenile crowd.

“Bets, here!” announced a young Twi'lek to the crowd.

“No bets!” snarled Ben, already knowing it would be unheeded, not being the first time (he was proved right, as not two seconds after he straightened back around, Sien, a Sullustan, whispered his wager).

Kyp rounded on Jaia, his saber clashing with her own as it ignited, they twined, sparking where the volatile blades intersected. She held the tension before spinning out of the grip, causing Kyp to lose balance, the momentum of a haphazard swing bringing his saber to meet a tree trunk. The blade sliced through, a glowing angry mark left in its wake.

A second swing. This time Kyp ducked, and now it was his sister's saber that met the tree, a second cut meeting in tandem with the first. Their sabers met in a succession of clashes.

Ominous snaps hit Ben's attention. Through the Force he felt the intact fibers of the tree groaning, struggling to now handle the weight of its canopy.

Jaia, meanwhile, using the Force to propel her, flew into the scarred tree, roundhouse kicking it in order to give her the momentum to reach a neighboring tree in the canopy above them. She stood on a horizontal branch, her saber held aloft, raising her chin up at Kyp in cocky challenge.

Kyp hesitated. Heights had a very different feel when he wasn't surrounded by the protective hull of a cockpit. If he was going to look at the world from above, he'd rather it be from the seat of an x-wing. Not that it was any degree safer, in truth, _especially_ the way _he_ flew.

It was an irrational fear, and he knew it. Which was why Jaia was goading him so, which he also knew. Spite rose up and tangled with the spike of fear in his heart, but it gave him the push to follow. Spite: ever the reliable placebo for courage. He flung against the tree in the same manner to ascend. They lept through from branch to branch, their fight continuing.

This was the last the tree could take. The trunk splintered and began to give way.

“Oh no, oh no” D-0 buzzed, the roller droid rocking anxiously at Ben's heel.

Ben tore his eyes away from his dueling children—disappearing from his physical view—as the trunk snapped, realizing that the trajectory of the fall was directly in the path of the group of his students. He abandoned his pursuit of them, lifting his arms out to slow the fall of the tree, struggling through his still-divided attention.

A chorus of gasps and shouts rose and fell before several, and then many, lifted their hands as well. Though some of them still struggled to lift rocks by themselves, the combined effort of them all together, the older and the younger, eased the burden overall greatly. They all scattered to move from under the hovering object, before releasing it, allowing it to fall the last few feet to the ground with a smash that sent forest floor debris up into the filtered afternoon sunlight.

Ben ran into the forest, his eyes cast upward, scanning for the two teenagers currently causing the rain of severed branches (still sizzling from saber slices upon their impact to the ground) and flocks of disturbed wildlife to scamper.

His students, also thoroughly rapt in the fight, were on his heels.

“They're being very intense today, Master Solo,” Somni remarked at his side, an edge of worry making its way into her voice.

Ben just let out a breath and threw his arms in exasperation as tension gripped every muscle in his body.

Above, the two had finally settled on a branch some fifty feet in the air they both could stand on. The fight was now a two-sided front: fighting each other, and fighting to stay balanced. The precarious position presented a different level of challenge, movements of the other had to be accounted for, had to be met with equal but opposite action, or they both would fall.

There was more stillness, more pauses, more calculation. Kyp could see Jaia's dark eyes burning in the fire of the fight. She could feel the energy of the Force crackling around her, moving through her in every swipe, every maneuver, every rush of her blood from the battledrum of her heart. This was her stride. She could see in her brother's hazel eyes, different from her own, the ever-running calculations and re-calculations of a pilot, senses-to-action honed with such synchronicity that it was to others often mistaken for instinct.

But they were young, 18 and 17, driven by impulsive youth only bolstered by their own natures. Kyp struck first, and Jaia—only able to move so much to dodge and throw her saber out to block with so much impact without throwing them both—was not able to avoid the blade entirely, and it grazed her side. The searing burn sent red to her vision, which swam for a moment, and her own shout echoed around the trees. Instinct and anger clouded together, and when they met eyes again, Kyp stumbled slightly to see something else pass through his sister's eyes.

A new fervor took her movements, and she clashed her blade with more ardor, and less care. His attention was directed away from his footing to counter the assault, and it cost him. On her swing, he moved.

His foot landed wrong. It slipped. His blood stopped.

Everything stopped.

Gravity began to take him.

Jaia's eyes, widening, now shone with terror.

She reached.

Their hands gripped tightly. His feet both lost placement, she fell against the branch, still gripping her brother's hand, holding them both, crying out as the pain in her wound shot through her under the strain.

He held, forcing his breathing to even. For calm to wash through him. He reached out his senses to his surroundings. He looked up.

A moment passed between them. Then confusion crossed her face, as mirth passed over his.

He let go.

“SIKE!” he bellowed as he raised his saber to cut the branch under her too as he fell.

He went down, meeting branch by branch in the path he had quickly projected. Jaia followed, struggling more to find footing in being caught off guard.

He might have held that upperhand, but the risky move thwarted him on the last branch to the ground. His foot once again didn't quite make its mark, causing him to overcompensate with his right leg—his bad leg—and pain shot through where bone met durasteel. It was an old pain that blinded him. He managed, barely, to maintain his balance to the forest floor, though pain loosened his grip, and his saber fell out of his hands, clattering down somewhere below the brush. He followed to retrieve it, but Jaia was on his heel.

He dodged but she swung him around, locking him in a hold, her lightsaber shining against his throat.

“YIELD!” he gasped, tapping his hand against hers, and she relented her grip, her saber whooshing as it retracted.

She gave a girlish giggle and bounced around on her heels in giddy victory. He rolled his eyes, still gasping for breath, hands on his knees.

“Whatever,” he waved off, still huffing, as she danced around him, “I had to let you win that one, make up for all last week's duels.”

 _“Please!,”_ she teased, still bouncing, “Those didn't count, they were group trainings. Dad called time before we were done. A fight isn't over 'til it's over.”

 _Debatably true,_ he thought to himself. Those trainings were done in paired-off groups along with the rest of the students. Fights were ended at intervals, rather than when a yield was called.

This fight however, was started more... organically. Specifically, when they had been inside, reading over texts in the library. _“Practical knowledge is good,”_ Ben had said to them, handing them holopads and a stack of identically leather-bound books, _“But you need a foundation in theory.”_

So Kyp had taken the bound pages, turning them over with an amusement, marveling—who used paper? His father among few others. In the first page, written in an ornate, precise script he recognized, was the title, _Control, Sense, and Alter: An Overview on Aspects of the Force and Abilities Derived Therein, Including Commentary on the Writings of Jedi Master Bodo Baas_ and underneath it, _Ben C. Solo 24 ABY_.

 _Riveting_ stuff.

Which is why, two hours of due diligence later, Kyp, thoroughly bored, began flicking pieces of folded scrap paper at his sister. She just waved them away with a flick of her fingers, her eyes still pointedly on the words displayed on the holopad before her, though she'd long-since stopped processing them. Thwarted, he instead began to Force-lob pencils and data-pointers, but she, never lifting her eyes to him, instead took the floating projectiles herself, gently rotating the objects in a carousel of clutter around her finger lazily, as she still pretended to read Jedi texts. At this point, multiple neighboring students were giving them both pointed looks, some annoyed at their distraction, some watching the show as a welcome break in monotony, and others with envy at their ease.

Still ignored yet undeterred, Kyp began Force-floating books and holopads, and directed them to orbit around her head. “Hehe look, you're like the sun,” he giggled before whispering, “'cos you're full of hot air.”

Jaia snapped. Slamming down her datapad, as well as the mid-air objects, which slammed down to earth, she launched herself over the table and tackled him to the floor.

This then of course progressed into the fight that just took place, the original motive becoming utterly forgotten in the thrill of sparring.

He gave her another huff and just she returned it with a cheeky smile. He winced and massaged his leg, which still gave phantom aches.

Her smile dropped off her face. The delighted glint in her eye was chased away and replaced by furrowed concern, “Hey,” she said softly, walking toward him, “Is your leg ok? Are you ok?”

He closed his eyes, biting back another grimace. An old injury, an old event. An old fear that accompanied it. They had been younger when it happened, and she had saved his life. But his leg was destroyed in the process, and what was once flesh and bone was replaced by durasteel and skin-grafts. Sometimes phantom pain lingered, and he was never sure how much of it was physical or psychological, or if the distinguishment ever really mattered.

He nodded, until he opened his eyes and he groaned, seeing their father stalking over to them over her shoulder, his eyes blazing.

She turned to follow his gaze, seeing for the first time, the destruction left in their wake.

“Aw no,” she grumbled in dread.

Her father stopped before them, meeting them at eye-level, looking into two pairs of eyes that both sheepishly dodged to meet his own.

They'd inherited his height, and yet the sense that their father towered over them had never really disappeared. His presence was imposing, even moreso now as anger was rolling off of him. His dark robes swept over disturbed ferns and severed, crumpled branches.

He was flanked by the students, their friends and rivals and pseudo siblings throughout their lives. Whispers swept through the group.

“Are you both alright?” Ben asked, dark eyes inspecting his eldest children.

“Who won?” a voice piped up from the group.

“Enough,” Ben growled, silencing the crowd with a look.

“I did,” Jaia answered over his shoulder.

Ben rolled his eyes as half of the kids whooped and hollered, while the other half groaned, and credits exchanged hands.

“We're fine,” Kyp chimed in, waving his hand in nonchalance.

“Is _this_ fine?” their father leveled, pointing at the cauterized gash in Jaia's side, which admittedly, still smarted.

He pointed to the debris, “Is this fine? You felled a tree that could have killed them.”

A hush passed over them both, and they took in the information and evidence. Had they really done that? And not even noticed?

Kyp spoke first, “...sorry,” he muttered, barely audible, eyes cast downward.

“Just...” Ben began sharply, before stopping, rubbing a hand over his face.

He was quiet for a moment, considering, hand paused on his beard as he willed the last of the tension from his body.

“Go to the med-office, get that treated. Your sister should still be there,” Ben finally told Jaia, then looked at Kyp, “You too. Get your leg checked. I'll go with you both. I want to talk to you.”

A couple of the kids gave them looks of fatuous glee, faces that screamed, “ooh, gonna getting told off.”

She shot them a stink eye. It was like having thirty extra pesky siblings.

Ben noticed the wordless exchange and rounded on the others, “The rest of you, go to the training circle and pair off to practice your forms. I'll be there in a minute.”

The groups broke off. The larger group of students went off, talking, laughing, and joking amongst each other. “I told you, Somni,” said Erin, shaking a coinpurse, “my money's always on Jaia,” could be heard. Another, a human, ran up behind him and smacked him on the back before whispering something in his ear, which made his neighbors snicker and his own ears turn beet-red. They couldn't overhear anything else as they made distance.

Ben noticed the siblings looking at the group wistfully. He sighed, turning on his heel “Stop it. You're the ones who've rampaged half a forest.”

They walked, Jaia and Kyp flanking on either side of him, trailing behind their father, D-0 trundling along behind all of them, beeping contentedly.

As if to emphasize his point, they had to step over their felled tree.

“Because _you've_ never destroyed a forest,” Kyp noted pointedly, swinging his leg over the trunk.

Ben thought back to, in fact, a number of forests that met their inadvertent demise at his hand. Takodana, Mustafar, Starkiller.

Starkiller...

Maybe it was that memory that had struck a chord today. When he and Rey had been strangers and bitter enemies, fighting their way through the woods as it splintered and fell to pieces around them. And now to see these two, who represented equal parts of both of them, mirroring that.

No... this wasn't like that.

That was a lifetime ago, literally. That was when he had been blinded by anger and betrayal and had the manipulations of a madman whispering into his thoughts for as long as he'd known life. That was when he'd worn the mantle of Kylo Ren, someone he had once been and yet, not. Remembering was like peering through the fog of someone else's memories, yet they were still his own. All those actions and feelings and justifications were his own. It was a dichotomy he had been struggling to reconcile with for years, and even now still at times.

But, they knew all of this of course. His children. They knew everything. They had been told all of their history, better or worse. All of it. Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, Darth Sidious, all of it. It was a tainted web. Everything that Rey and he had since learned. Anakin and Padme, Palpatine's manipulations. Anakin's fall. Luke, Leia, Han. Luke's role in reaching Vader. Luke's mistake, Snoke's manipulations. His own fall. His mistakes.

They wouldn't be kept in the dark like he had been. A dark expectation held over him without him even knowing it. Not finding out about Vader until he was 20, not even from the mouths of his family, but from a galaxy scandal that ended his mother's political career, it had shattered his sense of self. And even his peers had seen him in different eyes, just a preconceived inevitability. A fate he had no choice in. Even Luke...

No. He refused to make the same mistakes. He would do better by them.

They would know their history. The stains were there. They would do better. This was their history, but they were not beholden to it.

He settled back to the present. He'd stopped walking without realizing it, and he must have let his thoughts color his expression, since his children were both looking at him with incredulous eyes. He sighed again, continuing on.

“You went too far this time” he murmured to them.

“ _What?_ Why?”

He looked at Jaia, “The Force lightning.”

She stopped, looking at him, suddenly small. Vulnerable. A moment passed. Instead of seeing the young woman she'd grown to be, he suddenly saw the infant he'd held on the day she was born. A new, fragile life completely, utterly dependent on him. His arms, feeling unsteady, uncertain, unworthy. Large brown eyes like his own, blinking at the too-bright too-big world, scared, overwhelmed, welling with tears. It had been like a stark mirror.

“Dad,” she said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “I'm not Sidious.”

It felt like a fist had clamped around his heart.

“No, no” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders, “no,” he repeated firmly, his low voice almost growling. “I _know_ that. You know that. Never let anyone cast doubt over you about that. That... that isn't what I meant.”

He sometimes forgot that he no longer had to kneel to meet them at eye-level, a muscle memory learned throughout years, “It tends to happen when you're angry or scared, right? You've said so yourself—you have a hard time controlling it.”

She nodded.

He looked at his eldest child. He loved all of his children, but his first daughter was the one he saw the most of himself in. Not necessarily in appearance, although she was the only of the three to inherit his ink black hair and dark eyes.

There was a storm in her. Sometimes her mind was a calm sea. But there were times, and not infrequent, that it was a tempest, a churning tumult, waves crashing over themselves with force to destroy whatever caught its wake. It was something that he had never sensed in the others. She'd always been intent on keeping it hidden beneath the surface, but more and more lately, she'd been lapsing.

And there were other reasons he worried for her...

“I felt your presence in the Force change,” he admitted to her, “It was brief,” he added.

Her eyes shone as an intangible emotion settled in them, her brows furrowed.

He cupped her face in his hand, running his thumb over her cheek, projecting love and assurance to her, “You didn't do anything wrong. The dark side feeds off anger, pain, and fear. And these are not bad things to feel, but...”

He took a deep breath, “Take me as the abject example. It will consume you if you're not careful. And I don't want that for you, any of you.” he pointedly met Kyp's eyes, reminding him this was for him too, “Look out for each other.”


	2. Machines and Memories

***

Rey frowned, retracting her hands that were buried in circuitry.

It didn't make sense.

They had found R2-D2 submerged that morning, seeming to have gone for an ill-considered swim in the lake that the academy was built on. When they found him, they joked about it. He must have taken the students' complaints of the heat too seriously, they'd said. And honestly, it seemed completely in line with the cylindrical droid's general approach to life—if the students were threatening to jump into the lake, he would be the one to zip past all of them to splash in first, screeching beeps the whole way.

The banter died when it became obvious that R2 wasn't responding to their quips. Or at all. So Rey had waded in to retrieve the lifeless droid. It had been since then that she worked, checking circuits, re-wiring the neural network, examining processor after processor, and still she was just puzzled.

He was completely fritzed.

 _But that shouldn't be_ , she thought as she leaned back, stretching limbs that were screaming in protest at the awkward working position she'd held for longer than her body could readily accommodate anymore.

The old droid shouldn't have issues just from being underwater. Even if he got a little waterlogged, that wouldn't short his whole system.

She stood and walked around her mechanic's hangar, turning the problem over in her brain, allowing her legs to shake out their lingering stiffness. She paced, passing through the rows of shelving units of spare parts, littered with bits and bobs she'd accumulated over the years, seeing their potential for usefulness and still finding it hard, even now, to lightly discard such things as “waste.”

The item that took up the most space in the large hangar was the _Falcon._ It sat like a quiet old sentinel next to two smaller hyperdrive shuttles, bathed in the afternoon sunlight that filtered through the windows bordering along the domed ceiling. The ship's age was only further accentuated by the patchwork of newer modifications and replacement parts they'd had to constantly add to the thing just to keep it running. At this point, she suspected it was really only held together by bonding tape and sheer dumb hope.

It was, by far, the most temperamental, haphazard ship she'd ever seen, ever flown, ever cared for; threatening to kill them within the very first hour she'd stepped foot on it.

She had loved it immediately.

 _The garbage will do,_ she smiled in spite of herself at the timeworn memory.

There was insight in hindsight. At the time, the decrepit ship had simply been an accidental boon—her first time in space, first respite from a hell of sand and waiting. The ship that carried her into something bigger than herself.

She hadn't known it at the time, but the _Falcon_ was her first connection to Ben, too. Like her, the ship had been discarded and abandoned in the miserable wastes of Jakku, under the brutish and bloated hand of that maggot, Plutt. It may have laid there until it was swept away in the desiccating wind bit by bit, to become another lonely, stripped skeleton under that oppressive sun. Like she might have become...

And it had been stolen. Like Ben. Stolen before she'd first seen it, reduced to an impersonal asset, delivered through constantly changing hands of different masters. Stolen from Han, who'd run from one edge of the galaxy to the next in order to find it again, and to get it back.

She stopped, standing alone in the room.

Han had died to bring him home again.

Maybe, from a certain point of view, Han had accomplished what he set out to do, in the end. The act of killing his father had fractured Ben's spirit enough to see the glimpse of light through the cracks. Clarity to see through the manipulation and pain and betrayal.

She fiddled with the fabric of her robes.

But it didn't mean she'd forgiven him for doing it, though. Not exactly.

Maybe that was an odd thing to admit regarding a man she'd spent 10 years fighting to bring back, had made a family and a life with. But they'd both had decades now to explore the shared-soul aspect of their dyad, and she knew that lingering feeling meant, at least in part, that he still hadn't forgiven himself.

They were both a swirl of shared feelings and experiences, and she'd realized now that her immediate taking to Han hadn't just been her own desperate desire for a parent, though that had been very real. It was her soul recognizing this man as someone she loved, someone she wanted to make proud. And then when he died? That searing, shattering agony that tore through her? Ben had been feeling that.

Regardless, they'd been his actions. Among others in his evil apprenticeship, regardless of the sad way he'd been cornered into it. She'd made no qualms about the reality of those, but...

All her life, she'd been surrounded by old things, scraps of mechanical carcasses with tainted histories. She had spent her formative years as a scavenger in that junkyard desert. She took the pieces she could use for the future, left the rest. She'd salvaged shipwrecked Star Destroyers for sustenance, she'd used a gutted Imperial walker to shelter against the sun and sand, and she'd found in a First Order attack dog, Kylo Ren no less, a commonality and understanding. Because of course.

She'd seen a reflection of herself in this monster who turned out to be a man. They'd already seen into each other's minds and deepest fears in the interrogation room, and damn it all if it wouldn't have been _easier_ to have just used that knowledge as the fuel to fan the flames of hatred. Be enemies. But it just could never stay the easier path, could it? Instead, the more time spent in that bond, the more she'd seen just another abandoned, lonely child. Her own anger and pain and unworthiness and deep isolation shown clear, reflected back at her.

Love was found in recognition. It was hard to say when exactly that recognition began to turn into something like love, but she supposed it might've been when they touched hands. When she saw his future, Ben Solo as he could be. As he would be. Sitting with her, fighting _with_ her, coming back to her, returning with her to make something new.

She'd always been surrounded by old things. And if there was one thing she knew she was good at, it was selecting pieces of the old to make something new. Their past was irrelevant, present need and future potential winning out every time. If she'd held stubborn grievance against the Empire, and passed over the AT-AT that laid waste in some empty moral gesture, she would have died in the sandstorms long ago. But she was _Rey_ , a desert orphan who was hellbent on survival.

And she had. Force, she had survived these 50 years, a marvel and an understatement. All except for one small blip in that survival-streak that she had never forgotten.

She came back to the present. Feeling a weight and weariness settle in her limbs that hadn't existed before. She stepped away from the patchwork ship to approach the astrometric droid still sitting lifeless on the floor. Ancient thing, outdated and outperformed by any droid of the last decade. But still unmatched. Unmatched in will and colorful personality and loyalty. Equally colorful choice of language.

She rested her hand on the droid, passing glance at the splattering of long-faded scars and calluses on her skin, next to the scuffs and dents on his metal hull.

Old things...

“We're all old things now, aren't we?” she whispered to R2, reaching to take up the spanner once again.

Another half hour of tinkering led her to prodding at his visual actuator. Perhaps he had bumped into something on his way into the lake and shorted a fuse that way, maybe he'd recorded something.

“What were you doing in the water, anyway?” she murmured, a spark zapping against the wire.

Lights flared to life as his holoprojector was activated. A stream of blue light materialized into the familiar figure of Finn before her.

“Hey Sunshine,” he said in his message, flashing his shining smile, eyes alight, “Hope Artoo and Somni got back to you safely. Paige really misses her sister, it was good to have her visit. And I think Artoo was pleased to see Threepio again... not that he'd admit it in those words, but we _all_ know,” he laughed, the lines indenting his face almost disappearing at the gesture, “Threepio is enjoying his role as ambassador's assistant. You should hear him, ' _finally, some appreciation for my programming—'_ ”

Rey waved impatiently as tension began to grip the muscles in her body, “I know I know, I heard this yesterday,” she huffed.

She kept poking and prodding as the hologram of her friend continued. He updated her on Rose (Senior Engineer to the Fleet was keeping her busy, but she was well) in addition to the recent political climate in the new Interplanetary Federation.

“—wouldn't sign the Security Treaty. And _that_ provoked one heated argument around the representative's assembly. I almost thought there was about to be a throwdown. They can hardly ever agree as it is, but this—”

A cloud of anxiety had her nerves lit like live wires, as her hands in the circuitry became unsteady. She withdrew them, trying to steady herself. Why? Why the feeling? She knew that even though the still fairly-new government had its hiccups and disagreements, they had long-since chased down the last of the First Order ranks, the galaxy had been in relative peace. There had been no major threats. Why the Treaty?

“There's one more thing,” Finn had said, his happy persona melting away enough to reveal someone more somber. Tired. “The Chancellor's daughter has gone missing.”

She froze, her heart drumming in her chest. Fear, anger, confusion, startlement, concern all roiled through her stomach.

She'd met the girl briefly, about two years ago, when they'd approached her and her father about their academy. She was force-sensitive, as they'd discovered, and they offered to bring her under their tutelage on Naboo to explore her skills. But the Chancellor had ostensibly refused, expressing distrust of the “myth of the Jedi.” The girl had looked on sadly.

“I might have just thought it was a runaway case, but...” his face was completely sober now, “There's been more and more of those disappearances lately. Kids just... going missing, this one was just the most high profile one. They suspect a kidnapping, but we don't have any lead on who or why.”

R2's holoprojector sparked again, and the projection became more fuzzy, stilted, glitched.

“Disappearances—disappearances—disappearances—disappearances,” the image of Finn stuttered, passing in and out, stuck on unnatural repeat.

Her heart was racing, her fingers flying to the projector component, “Okay! Okay!”

“Suspect—a kidnapping—disappearances— _disappearances_ — _kids_ — _kids_ —”

“STOP!”

“—runaway—”

Her heart skipped a beat, in an iron grip clamped by an invisible fist of dread and sadness.

Rey clipped the circuit.

The holoimage disappeared, R2 returning to his motionless state.

She sat back, her hands hitting the sandstone ground with a thud, her chest heaving as if she'd just run to the forest and back.

She focused on calming her breathing, steadying her heartbeat. Calm down.

Then a niggling suspicion took root in her brain.

With an air of immense annoyance she reached within herself to find the well-worn thread in her soul. A thread that reached out over time and space, at the other of end of which, there was an idiot. Tall, Dark, and Dumb. Someone she realized had been the true source of her recent mysterious anxiety.

She pulled the thread.

“What did you do?” she accused, standing to her feet as Ben appeared before her.

“What did _I_ do?” he affronted without skipping a beat, entirely nonplussed by her sudden appearance before him.

After thirty years of the bond being apparent to them, materializing into each other's view had lost a touch of its novelty. An everyday occurrence as unremarkable as Comm-Linking someone.

 _How used to each other we've gotten_ , she thought as she took in the sight of him. A face she could remember by touch, a voice she could recognize anywhere, a presence she could distinguish without sight or sound.

They could see traces of each other's surroundings now. She could see impressions of the forest around Ben, green and vibrant with life, leaves floating lazily in the air, sun rays mixing with shadows meeting the end of their cosmic journeys. She never stopped loving the sight of trees, the wonder of so much green.

Next to him were two non-distinct shadows.

“Are you talking to Mom?” said a voice she thought was probably Jaia. It was never as clear as life, the way Ben's voice was in the connection. By contrast, their voices always sounded like it was carried through muddied water.

They'd found, soon after they'd been born, that their children appeared as faint impressions through their bond, if they were nearby. But never quite clearly. The force-bond had been a consequence of hers and Ben's shared souls. Perhaps, because their children were products of themselves, souls from their own, they could almost see them as well.

“Hi Mom!” That was likely Kyp. She saw the shadow raise its arm to wave. It must've looked quite ridiculous on their end. Waving to someone who wasn't there.

She waved back in spite of herself, aware that he wouldn't be able to see it. The view was one-way. They wouldn't be able to see her as she was seeing them.

“Is Artoo still soggy?”

She nodded at Ben, and he relayed the affirmative to their son. It was like he was on an ear-piece call, and had to fill in the other unheard side of the conversation.

“Did you try re-wiring his neural network?” Kyp asked thoughtfully.

Rey smiled. Her middle child was the one who'd most taken after her mechanical interest, often choosing to sit next to her and watch as she tinkered on droids or ships or lightsabers. Her eldest usually chose to tag along with her father, off perusing books and practicing force-abilities.

“I did.”

“She did.”

Rey pressed her fingers to her lips, “Everything looked in order. The problem isn't his hardware, that all checked out. Must be his software.”

Which admittedly wasn't quite her skillset of expertise.

She looked at Ben, “Is D-0 still with you?”

He gestured with his foot to a droid unseen, “Yes, he's right here.”

“Okay, give him to me. I'm going to link them up and run Artoo's backup program.”

Ben knelt and touched the droid, which then appeared into her view. She knelt to him.

“The backup will probably take about 12 hours,” Ben reminded her.

“I know, but it's the best idea I have right now,” Rey admitted, reaching her hand out to the droid.

The droid appeared before her in the hangar as Ben removed his hand, still under her finger tips. She released the droid as he let out several mottled beeps, veering unsteadily.

“Oh,” he buzzed, teetering, “Dizzy,” his conical head spun a few times before he adjusted.

Rey returned her gaze to Ben.

“So, what did you do?” she repeated the inquiry.

He snorted, “More like, what did your kids do?”

A chorus of indignant “hey!”s resounded as her eyebrows rose.

“What happened?”

“They were fighting,” Ben explained, weariness eking into his voice, “ _again._ ”

“So?” Rey almost laughed, “That's hardly anything new.”

And it really wasn't. Since they could walk her oldest daughter and son were scuffling with each other.

It _had_ worried her a little, at first. Especially one incident when they were 7 and 6, when she and Ben had to actually Force-hold the two to keep them apart, as they struggled against their invisible restraints to resume their dust-up in spite of the 10 foot distance separating them.

Rose, witnessing the whole thing, must have been able to see the panic on her face. She shrugged, unconcerned, “You both never grew up with siblings,” she reminded them, before wiggling her hand in a vague gesture, “This is just how they say hello.” Paige, hugging onto her mother, looked on curiously at the younger children, as they began to unsteadily Force-float pebbles to chuck at each other.

Rose recalled afterwards that the consequent look of shock and utter disbelief on both hers and Ben's faces had nearly sent her into a fit of giggles.

The worry had still followed Rey the rest of that day. Thoughts chasing onto themselves. What if they grew to hate each other? Truly hate each other. Fight each other in earnest and malice. Maybe sibling tussles were a thing for other children, _maybe_ (she still wanted to balk at the notion, it sounded asinine). But these were not only force-sensitive children, but children who were the product of a family known for backstabbing each other on a level that threw the whole galaxy into chaos. Multiple times. On _both_ sides.

So imagine her utter whiplash, then, after she found them again, not a few hours later, asleep and cuddled up with each other under a Hydenock tree, having tired themselves out watched frogs together in their favorite place by the lakeside. And she knew then, as she gently picked them up to carry them back to the villa without waking them, that in the end, they would be alright.

“Granted,” Ben admitted, but added, “Except this time, they destroyed half a forest—”

“Dad, you and this forest—”

“I think you're seriously underestimating how big Naboo's forests are—”

He leveled them a hard look, to which Rey could only respond with a look of her own. A raised-brow look of skepticism that screamed, _You know they're becoming immune to that, right?_

“ _And_ ,” Ben continued pointedly, losing patience, “weren't paying attention to realize they'd almost killed the others in the process.”

Ah..

“I see,” was all Rey said.

They looked at each other. She knew there was more to be said.

“...What did she say? You're quiet. Did she say something? What did she say?”

“Where are you now?” she asked him.

“They're going to the med-office,” he answered.

“ _Med-office_?”

“They'll be fine,” he assured quickly, “Nothing serious. I'm taking them there, but then I need to go get the rest of the students, I sent them to the training circle.”

“I'll go get them,” Rey offered, “I should be done here soon.”

Ben nodded, and with that, disappeared from her view.

She massaged her neck, her shoulders rising and falling in a sigh. Then she noticed D-0 looking up at her expectantly.

“I help?” he buzzed, bobbing his head up and down.

“Yeah,” she answered absentmindedly, grabbing a a link cable, “Going to transfer Artoo's backup, it'll be several hours. Hopefully that sorts out the problem. You up for it?”

The roller droid, in answer, moved next to R2-D2, opening his link hatch. She set that up, then stood to leave, grabbing her lightsaber on the way out.

Rey was surrounded by new things. Things that she made with her own hands and will. Her saberstaff was one of them, re-purposing pieces of her old quarterstaff that defended her in years past. Another was this academy, the gaggle of students she wanted to give the guidance and belonging she had never had herself.

The last thing was her family. The one that she had found, had made return to her again. The family she had made.

And that included her three children who managed to find trouble wherever they went.


	3. Through This, I Have Followed You

3

***

The academy was nestled in the emerald-studded mountains of Naboo's lake country. The villa itself composed a collection of sandstone and travertine buildings—most of which were circular with domed roofs in classic Nabooian architecture—built into terraces along the heavily sloped lakeside. Varykino was the name of the lush property, belonging once to the Naberrie family. Ownership had passed from Padme Amidala to Leia, an inheritance that fell to Ben. After his return, and their subsequent marriage, ownership was placed in Rey's name. Matriarchal society and all. Currently it housed their family and the twenty-odd students who lived there part-time, leaving intermittently throughout the year to visit their families.

Ben trailed behind Jaia and Kyp, stepping down the pale stone stairs and crossing the grassy lawn dotted with towering cypresses, the burning sun overseeing all in its advance across the sky. He stopped a few paces from the building they had long ago retrofitted and designated as the infirmary.

“I know you're angry—” Ben began.

“Angry?” Jaia snapped back a little too quickly, striding beyond him to disappear into the door of the med-office with Kyp at her shoulder, “Who's angry? I'm not angry!”

\- - -

“ _Grounded_? What are we, twelve?” Jaia expressed angrily as she marched in, visibly fuming.

Taryn looked up from sorting a stack of bacta patches, seeing her older sister and brother striding into the room. They were both looking frazzled and irate. She wondered what had happened this time.

Jaia led the stride, haughty indignation emanating from each swing of her step. She always seemed to take the very world around her and project it back with ten-fold intensity, like an emotional lens. She felt and did nothing small. She was all height and sharp angles, from her shoulders and collarbone up to her face, which was highlighted by a nose and cheekbones and brow that were cut in such starkness that only a knife-edge came to mind. It reminded Taryn almost of a razorback, its projection of bristles and jagged spines serving as a warning to others that it kept itself well-guarded. Her face was shadowed by the crown of soot-black hair she never let grow past her neck. The only apparently soft part of her was her eyes, brown and wide and warm, almost not seeming to belong on her.

Kyp matched her in height, and little else—except perhaps arrogance—but a lankiness in his limbs betrayed the fact that he hadn't quite grown into it yet. His hair, brown like their mother's, laid on his head in a wild tuft of disarray. His hands and arms were nimble and lithe, with an energy like a coiled spring, always needing to be doing _something_. His hazel eyes were close set and alight, constantly teetering the edge of observation and focus, perception and discernment. His lips were slanted in a way that made them seem stuck in an eternal smirk—an inheritance from their father and grandfather.

She'd always looked up to them—even physically, since she was the shortest of them all, closer in height to her mother, and not even that. At 15 she was accepting that she would never quite level up to them, height-wise or otherwise. Being three years younger meant that she was always left chasing after them, struggling to keep up, in every aspect and in life. There was _always_ that bridge that she could never quite cross to get to them.

The sterile white room seemed to bend around the two, as if their electric presence was so diametrically opposed to the stale mundanity that resided here. This was the dry world of bandages, medicine, and salves. This was where people came when they got sick, when a virus needed to be combated with the correctly formulated antiviral, when they were burnt or cut and needed the injury cleaned and treated, when a bone was dislocated and needed to be set back into place. What was more sublunary than injury and sickness? A body breaking simply because it was.. just human? Ultimately just a fragile thing.

They always seemed like something else to her, more than just human, larger than life. _Could_ they even be hurt? Sometimes she forgot it was possible. And she _knew_ they frequently forgot that too.

“What did you do now?” Taryn monotoned.

“I? _I_ did nothing,” Jaia answered haughtily, “ _I_ was a perfect angel. As ever. As always.”

“Batch of Bantha shit,” Kyp snorted, “This is your fault. _You_ attacked _me._ ”

“You started it!” she retorted, raising her finger, “You knew you were being annoying.”

“I did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did n—”

“Hey!”

Kyp paused as a wadded up tissue softly _foofed_ him in the face. The two stopped and looked over at Taryn, who had already taken another tissue into her hands, crumpling it up as well. For good measure, and to be fair, she flung the next one at Jaia, where it gently bounced off of her nose.

“This is a no-breaking stuff zone,” Taryn scolded, crossing her arms, “I can't just—” she wiggled her fingers animatedly, “—float stuff to clean it up.” She knelt to pick up the discarded tissue-balls, as if to emphasize her point. “And I _know_ you both won't do it.”

Even Taryn could feel the tension surging through the air, if _tension_ meant “ _things will end up shattered, prepare to duck_ ” was written in palpable letters in the air. And that was just from experience. She didn't need Force senses or abilities to see the raucous these two caused on a daily basis.

Which was good, because they were something she did not have.

“Why are you here anyway?” Taryn directed at them, a medical droid approaching as if on cue with an inquisitive air.

Instead of words, four sets of fingers pointed at four different things. Jaia had one finger jabbed to Kyp, and another to the angry red slice on the side of her abdomen. There was a hole in her blue tunic where the wound was, the edges of the fabric singed and burnt. _So, lightsaber wound_ , Taryn surmised with an uptick of one eyebrow.

Kyp mirrored the gesture, an accusative finger pointed to his older sister, the other rested hand on his knee, from there down where his prosthetic limb was underneath unmarred fabric and leather boot. He hadn't limped noticeably, and the leg wasn't in abnormal shape, no signs of visual injuries. _Pain,_ she filled in _, probably from an impact_.

The medical droid hummed to Taryn in a robotic voice, “You can get practice with a dermal re-generator to treat Miss Jaia's wound.”

She took said device from the shelf of medical equipment, as well as a scanner and cleaning materials.

“What are the specifications of the injury?” her metallic tutor asked with an instructive air.

Taryn rattled off assessment of the wound as she swabbed it with disinfectant. Laceration, mild burn damage to surrounding epidermis, not deep, “Doesn't need stitches, the regenerator can close it,” she said thoughtfully, chewing her lip, looking up at her sister with assurance, “It shouldn't scar very noticeably.”

“Damn,” Jaia bemoaned sardonically, crossing her legs in a casual air as Taryn finished with the regenerator and the wound was left only as a healed pink impression, “And I would've loved a big ol' dramatic scar.”

“Yeah, the one with all their limbs still attached thinks lasting injuries sound cool,” Kyp scoffed, behind him Jaia mouthed 'tripod' with a shit-eating grin.

The youngest, a dermal scanner in her hand, turned to him, “Pain?”

“Yeah,” he admitted absently, as he moved to remove his leather boot, and then roll up his pant leg.

To anyone, it looked like a regular leg, made of flesh and blood and bone and all the regular parts that make up the limbs that a human is often born with. Instead, it was a feat of medicine—or rather, _“A_ _ **feet**_ _of medicine”_ as Kyp had said dopily to his family members surrounding his bed shortly after getting it, lifting said foot, before he'd been promptly smacked by a sleep-deprived Jaia. It was a conglomerate of durasteel, circuits, and cybernetics, covered by grafts that mimicked the appearance of skin, making the transition from flesh to imitation seamless.

“I can check the organic parts,” she reminded him as she began scanning, “But you'll have to look at the mechanical portions and tell me if they look fine.”

The Accident had left different lingering effects on all of them. For Kyp, who had been so bored and restless after seemingly endless bedrest and bacta treatments, the delve into the world of mechanics had been a very welcome distraction. It was only later that its practical advantages became apparent. It was leagues easier to conduct repairs, maintenance, and necessary replacements as he grew when he could just do them himself. And it had been an unexpected way to bond with his mother.

For Taryn, who had been 11 at the time, it had opened a possibility she hadn't considered before. She'd been terrified for her big brother, yes, but she had been distracted from it by the rapt attentiveness that spellbound her. She'd watched as healers and medic droids surrounded him as more and more blood stained sheets, yet they remained unbothered and focused, rattling off analysis and updates and solutions and working with synchronized intent movements. Working with a purpose, a purpose she wanted too.

For her whole life she had been surrounded by people who seemed to be part of some great spiritual destiny, a destiny she was not privy to. They—her siblings, her parents, her family here—all seemed to be players in something so much larger than life. And she was just.... just her. Just Taryn. A spectator on the side.

So she threw herself into medicine, alight with the possibility of purpose of her choice, of her calling deep in her soul. She pored over documents and papers and diagrams. She immersed herself in the world of biochemistry and pathology. Currently, she was a student, tutoring here under supervision of the medical droid, but soon she would be leaving for Theed, where she was in line to complete a residency at the city medcenter, and from there she would work towards her medic certification.

Meanwhile, she handed her brother the cybernetic scans to check if their were any lingering abnormalities in the prosthetic, but her scans had already seemed to confirm her initial suspicions.

“I'm not seeing any tears or breaks or clots,” she explained, straightening her back again, “But I am seeing more activity in your thalamus and cortical neurons,” she turned off the scanner, “Phantom pain.”

“So,” Kyp slumped with a dejection that lay on him like an ill-fitted shirt, “Not real?”

Taryn rolled her eyes, “Just because it's happening in your brain and nervous system doesn't mean it's any less physical. It's no less real than remembering pain from a cut that's healed,” she shrugged, “Your brain remembers a limb that isn't there anymore, it's not uncommon for amputees. I can give you a pain killer if you want it.”

He shook his head, which made several locks of hair fall even more out of place. Taryn reached to brush a few lingering leaves out of the tangled mess, before ruffling it all up with a giggle as a dopey grin found its way back onto his face. Jaia, still sitting next to Kyp, also broke out into a smile.

“You lookiee like a Wookiee,” she laughed at him.

His hair had grown long and shaggy, but still not as long as his little sister's. Taryn's hair—also brown—flowed in length all the way down her back, but it was currently kept neatly contained in elaborate braids.

He threw his head back and growled in a sad approximation of Shyriiwook, “I get it from my uncle.”

“Where is Uncle Chewie anyway? I thought he was supposed to visit.”

Kyp shrugged, “Still on daring adventures with Maz I'd guess.”

Jaia spaced out wistfully, “Wish I was on adventures with Maz,” her expression soured, “But now we're stuck in here for a week.”

Scoffing, “I thought you said Maz didn't like you.”

“I don't know, can't fathom why,” she shrugged unaffected, “And why would it matter to me anyway? I'd still love to see the crazy planets they visit. Remember that piece of the death star wreckage he brought back from Kef Bir?”

“Remember the porg?” Taryn spoke up, “The one that nested in the villa roof and had babies?”

Jaia got a mischievous glint in her eyes as she glanced pointedly at Kyp, “The one from the planet 'Achoo'?”

“Oh shut it, I was little! I didn't have all my teeth!”

She was shaking with laughter at this point, “Or braincells.”

With a flourish, Kyp gently plucked the medical scanner from Taryn and waved it over Jaia with imprecise, sweeping movements.

“Ah,” Kyp declared, gazing intently at the blank scanner, “I'm afraid I have to diagnose you with,” he paused, scrunching his eyes shut, “Idiocy. It's incurable. So tragic.”

\- - -

Ben closed the force-bond as he saw the three teenagers approach, noticing not for the first time, the order they walked in. It was nearly always the same. Jaia striding first, Kyp just trailing on her heels, with Taryn keeping up a distance back from the both of them.

It was the same order they had been born in.

After Rey had pulled him back into the land of the corporeal and living, after already having spent ten years with her only as a voice and then a ghost, they threw themselves into life with each other—of purpose and unity and home and family—with the fervor and immediacy that only two people who had actually experienced death could. Who better could know how fleeting chances were, how quickly everything could be snatched away than people who had both passed beyond that final veil? Given, against all odds, a hard-won second chance? Of course they took it and ran, no room nor care for second thoughts.

Jaia was the result shortly after, and was immediately followed by Kyp. It had been another few years—between the juggle of cleaning up the long-abandoned villa, seeking out young force-users across the stars, and managing two unruly babies whose mischief only compounded in each others proximity—before they had finally decided to have another baby, Taryn.

It became the same way they each went through life, too.

It was a rarity to find the two eldest separated. They were always right on the others heels and nerves, plotting a novel new way to give them all a headache, throwing themselves into new hair-brained ventures without second-thoughts or considerations of consequence. Usually, the lead was charged by Jaia, the one driven by fire and stubbornness, longing and seeking. Kyp would follow by her side, itching always for a piece of the trouble they sought.

And then there was Taryn, quieter, more considering. Born with expressive eyes and her heart on her sleeve. She lacked the boldness of her siblings, substituted instead perhaps for earnestness. She was a presence that, for some reason, sought always to make itself smaller, but just...couldn't. She couldn't hide the loudness of her thoughts and feelings if she tried. She looked up to her siblings with wide-eyed wonder, like they were the sun and the stars, but trailed at a distance that she probably wasn't even conscious of. Regardless, she would always follow them. Anywhere. Since the instant she first stood on wobbly feet, she'd trundled along after them.

A warmth glowed in Ben's heart. These were _his_ children. Equal parts him and Rey, bits and pieces of the individuals of the past. But they were utterly, unequivocally— _blessedly_ —their own.

There had been one moot point he took no concession on with all of them, one thing he insisted to Rey when each of them were born. That they wouldn't be named after the dead.

Jaia had almost been named Leia. Maybe it would have been fitting. The sharpness in her words was an image of familiarity, but...

It was one of his oldest resentments. His name. A frustration he had confessed once to Snoke while he was still weaseling in his brain.

_“I hate that name.”_

_“Oh? Why is that? You are named after legends.”_

_“That's exactly it. Ben Kenobi... big famous Jedi. Everyone thinks I'm supposed to_ _**be** _ _him. I never even_ _**met** _ _him.”_

All his life he had the expectation of legacy held over him. One of which, besides the darker hidden expectation of Vader, was that of his namesake, a man he'd never met and knew next to nothing about aside from empty myth. And he had suffocated under it. He didn't want his children to be smothered by it too.

The three approached into his space. Kyp and Taryn stopped before him, but Jaia, who had indignation and irritation and anger radiating from her like a fire radiated heat, just brandished him with a wordless glare and continued on, sulking away from them all.

His eyes lingered on her retreating form.

It was a difficult line for him to walk. Trying so hard to keep them safe from the demons that had plagued _him_ , and giving them enough space to prevent that very effort from smothering them all the same. And the older they got, the more he knew he would have to relent from his deep need to shield them. _They're more than capable of handling themselves,_ Rey had reminded him often.

There was more than a hint of blatant childishness from Jaia's impudent gesture, but underneath it there was an earnest struggle. So he let her go, giving her the space to vent it off as she needed. As he had needed when he was her age. Ben knew she would come back when she was ready, she always did.

\- - -

She stormed over to the rock outcrop where the Hydenock tree grew. It was her favorite place, a cove of U-shaped stones, glossy where the lake lapped up to meet them, partially obscured by a grassy hill where the vibrantly scarlet tree claimed its roots. It felt like an alcove, semi-enclosed, enough to feel safe and hidden, open and elevated enough to get a prospective view of the expanse of water, and the height of the mountains.

Alone, she felt free to untangle the knot of frustrations held tight in her chest, the grating churn of emotions she didn't know how to put words to. The source of some were identifiable, others, less so. But they were all her own, she knew that much. It was another wariness their father had laid on them all, _“If you ever feel a presence in your mind that isn't your own, come to us.”_

Which was... fine. That was all well and good, but she _knew_ she didn't have a sentient pickle whispering into her ear, and she _still_ felt like a kriffing livewire. Her skirmishes with her brother always helped in just letting her vent that energy, but beneath her skin was a volatile current, feeling like at any moment it could arc out heedless of who was in its wake.

“Hey,” and she almost jumped out of her skin, “You okay?”

She turned to the familiar blond at her side. She had missed his approach entirely.

Her father's recent words briefly echoed in her head, _“You miss things when you aren't paying attention”_

 _“And... water is wet, thanks,”_ had been her dismissive response.

“Erin,” she blinked at him, “Why are you here, I thought you went to the training circle?”

“It's not that hard to sneak away,” he shrugged, “I wanted to check on you.”

“I'm fine,” she waved him off, her jaw tensing.

His blue eyes raked over her, a skeptical tilt in his face, “Didn't look like it just now.”

She dodged out of the line of his gaze to pace around, circling the crimson trunk of the Hydenock. It had grown since they were small. It still clung onto a few white blooms of the season.

The thoughts fell through like a dam breaking, “I know it seems childish, it's not the grounding thing. It's... I never asked for this!” she never asked to be born in-tune to this life-energy that felt like it was constantly trying to overtake her, this fire that she struggled to control lest it burn her through from the inside, “And Dad, he's always saying that we aren't like our family—and I _get_ where he's coming from but... that's almost worse, you know? Now it's just a _different_ expectation, that we'll be able to just overcome all this, all this baggage, and not make the same mistakes, but what if I _can't_ ? There were _so many_ mistakes.” It was a distinctly different suffocation, but it weighed all the same.

Being bestowed all the knowledge of all their family history had settled in two different routes in their brains. The first was the most familiar, the one that dominated in their day-to-day. The knowledge took on the same distant staleness as any other history lesson, no more tantalizing or intriguing than the history of the Old Republic's politics. As boring and un-related to them as learning about any other old guy in history that did stupid things, took body counts that were just numbers on a page, fought battles that were just a stupid name and a year _and who cares, can we go outside and float stuff now_?

But sometimes it was the second option. A prowling, lurking feeling that would snatch them in darker moments. Disgust and trepidation and doubt, that all this _sin_ and _darkness_ was woven into the same family history that had converged to produce them.

“There _were_ mistakes,” Erin hung the words into the air slowly, as if just considering them himself, “There were awful things done, but... in the end, they all led to you. That has to count for something, right?”

She blinked up at him. He was looking at her like... like _that_ , again. The deep-blue eyes of her friend were trained on her with a fixed intensity she had noticed in both the quiet and tumultuous moments for years. They were as blue as a sea, with the weight of the ocean.

“I hate the feeling of being caged,” she admitted quietly, darting her eyes away, surprised at her own sincerity.

He almost looked like he was going to stay quiet, but the words tumbled out of his mouth seemingly faster than he could keep them from running awry, “I don't think anyone could cage you.”

She couldn't stop the tug that quirked up the corners of her mouth, the filter between her brain and her mouth failing her once again, “I'd just lightning-fingers them to the death.”

“Hey, I think it's cool—like, wow, neat, I've seen the sky do that too.”

The snort that came out of her was piggish but his smile beamed back at her all the same.

Erin's eyes dropped to gravel and sand underfoot between them. Shyly. Uncertainly.

“I meant what I said earlier, my bet's always on you.”

Her heart thrummed against her ribcage, she felt a bloom of warmth on her face, on her chest.

“Why?”

The ground between them was gone, the distance was closed, they stood well in each other's spaces, her heart was drumming so loud in her ears she was certain he would hear it too.

“You're the brightest being I've ever seen. Brighter than any sun.”

Jaia wasn't sure when their lips brushed, when a light touch turned into bodies falling into each other and lips meeting in open, eager, greeting. She only knew when she was looking into sea-blue eyes that shone with wonder, adoration, and faith, and decided that she would indeed drown in them.

\- - -

They broke apart hours later.

In fact, it was only minutes or seconds, but in this little pocket of the universe they just had created, population two, time was a foreign concept.

But when they did finally break that connection, there were just smiles, fluttering hearts, and intoxicated giggles. Nervous and new and perfect.

At some point they would have to address the shift in their relationship, talk about how to navigate the terrain of this unexplored territory. But that could come later. They had time.

They said goodbyes, hands still holding, lingering onto each other as they pulled apart. _I'll see you tonight,_ they assured.

And when he walked away, Jaia stood there, feeling lighter than ever before. All her previous frustrations were forgotten.

“Wow, _someone_ got hit with a spontaneous sunburn.”

Nix that. All her previous frustrations were remembered.

She wheeled around to Kyp, getting quite annoyed about being snuck up on far too many times today. She narrowed her eyes, but she couldn't stifle the burning in her face.

Kyp just sauntered over casually, “Don't look now, it's getting worse. You and the tree match now.”

Her clever and scathing retort was cut off as he slung an arm over her shoulder.

“Don't worry,” he teased, but his tone took on a softness, “Your scandalous secret is safe with me.”

She huffed, before bringing her eyes to his, “Promise?”

Frankly, she could do without the over-protectiveness and scrutiny the knowledge would definitely bring. It would come out eventually, but she just wanted to enjoy this first.

He smiled, and not the smarmy smirk he usually wore, “Of course.”

She allowed a toothy half-grin in return, feigning reluctance as she slung her arm around to her brother's shoulder as well. She pointedly narrowed her eyes again, “How do I know I can trust you?”

“You can't,” he laughed as they walked forward out of the alcove like the most awkward four-legged creature, “We're friends by force. Birth proximity and all that. And you _can't_ put me back.”

“Ew.”

He released her from their hold and thumped her on the back with enough force to knock all the lingering angst out of her.

 _“_ Come on, Tree-face, it's stew night and I'm _starving_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> I know OC-heavy stories historically don't do very well traffic-wise, but I gravitate toward them and I am having a lot of fun writing this. It's interesting to create characters that have re-combinations of the best and worst parts of their parents.
> 
> So, the Rey/Ben kids. I thought it was appropriate to avoid naming them after other characters, considering Ben's feelings about his own name. The Kylo/Snoke quote is taken from The Rise of Kylo Ren comics.  
> Names-  
> "Jaia" is of Sanskrit origin. A lot of names (and imagery and motifs) in Star Wars are inspired by southern and eastern Asian culture/philosophy. The names Padme and Rey are derived from Sanskrit names, so it felt appropriate.  
> "Kyp" is a name of English derivation. I know it's a name used before in Legends (I'm not very familiar with in general), and this character isn't associated with that one. In my mind "Kyp" is a fairly common name in SW universe, like "Sam" is a common name here.  
> "Taryn". I batted between the names Taryn and Tara. Tara has meaning in Sanskrit, Taryn is a derivation of that. It also happens to have meaning in Hebrew and Irish.


End file.
